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Pan of Andromeda galaxy

Difficulty level:☆

Last year, NASA/ESA released a giant image of the Andromeda galaxy taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. At 4.3 Gb and 1.5 billion pixels this composite of 411 images is completely impractical for most of us, but fortunately one random internet denizen created a stunning panning video:

The Andromeda galaxy is the nearest large galaxy to our own galaxy, the Milky Way. (There are also several dozen smaller galaxies in our “Local Group”). Even though it is 2 million light years away, you can see Andromeda with the naked eye. In the video, the scenery gets brighter towards the end, as the view approaches the galactic centre where there are more stars. NASA has more details, and you can also download the image in various sizes or use a zoomable browser tool.